"There's no excuse to find oneself stuck in a desert these days," Philip muttered as he crested another dune. Between satellite positioning systems and cellular phones, it was practically impossible to get disconnected from society at all. So what were they doing trudging through what appeared to be the Sahara desert? The last few days may have been a bit muddled in his mind, but whatever the reason, Philip was pretty sure this was somehow James' fault. Whenever they got into a situation like this it was always James' fault....

Learning Chinese? Our lesson today is intended for absolute beginners who are just starting to learn Chinese. This means that even if you don't know any mandarin, you'll still be able to make sense of this dialogue. And by the end of our ten minute lesson, you'll be able to use a simple sentence pattern to say or ask how much more of something is left, whether it be distance or time.

@moorcharry_2 I'll see what Echo thinks about 还剩多久, but for me (non-native speaker; all disclaimers apply; offer void in Indiana) it sounds slightly weird -- I'd say that while you can use 剩 to talk about time, it's much more common to use it for things that are countable (hours, pieces of cake, bottles of water). (Thinking of it as being analogous to the English "left over," rather than "left," might be the way to go here.)

When people are talking about remaining time, I usually hear them using 要 or 有. "还要多久" is the most common way of asking "how much longer will this take?"